460 BIOLOGY. 



2838. In like manner the solubility of bodies in the 

 air is as requisite for smell, as that in water is for taste. 

 The water is the menstruum of the sapid, as the air is 

 of odorous, bodies ; and this indeed of necessity, because 

 water and air are the ante types of these mineral classes. 



2839. In order to be an odorous body or object of 

 smell, the resin must resolve itself into air, or become 

 aeriform. Aeriform resin is eethereal oil. Bodies such 

 as those which part rapidly with their electricity, sub- 

 stances containing hydrogen, aethereal oils and burnt 

 spirits, are the usual objects appreciated by the olfactory 

 sense. 



2840. The hydrogenous body is therefore provided 

 with a sweet scent. Most bodies which are evolved by fer- 

 mentation, in so far as they are electrical, are odoriferous. 

 Most blossoms smell agreeably, because they secrete 

 aerial matters. 



2841. The products of putrefaction emit a fetid odour, 

 because they indicate the presence not of aerial, but 

 aqueous and terrestrial matters. Nearly all animal bodies 

 stink, besides many secretions of the sexual parts, be- 

 cause they belong to the vegetable nature. 



2842. The objects of taste have their residence in 

 what is inorganic, but those of smell, as being objects of 

 a higher sense, have it in the vegetable kingdom. The 

 succeeding or auditory sense has the animal kingdom 

 for its object, while the eye scans the universe. 



2843. The nose is in every respect an electrical 

 organ; it is an electrophore, or rather a battery con- 

 sisting of numerous plates. Of the truth of this, its 

 numerous tortuous passages and laminated bones are 

 striking proofs. 



2844. That the nose consists of a great number of 

 blood-vessels, as well as of arteriose olfactory nerves, is 

 quite commensurate with its character or signification, 

 as being a higher pulmonary organ. 



2845. The objects of the three vegetative senses are 

 the three elements of the planet, earth, water and air ; 

 in the first of these reside the relation of the gravity, rest, 



